A Woman's Corpse (II)

Late one night at midnight, while my friends and I were smoking drugs in a private room at Hongdu Music City, plainclothes officers from the police station arrested us. I swallowed the drugs and smashed my head against a wall, trying to kill myself and escape punishment, but I was still sent to a drug rehabilitation center.

I had a mistaken belief: I was using my own money to take drugs, so how was I breaking the law? So I grew worse and more self-destructive. I used drugs, got locked up, came out and used again, then quit, over and over. Not only did I ruin my business, but I also squandered my savings. My sister tried to persuade me. On the surface, I promised not to touch drugs again, but the moment I turned my back, I disappeared with my friends again.

My sister had given up on me more than once, yet she could not let go of our sibling bond. She struggled alone to keep the family's braised goose business going, and she often came to the rehabilitation center to see and persuade me.

I was moved. I wept bitterly and swore never to use drugs again. But the slightest change in my surroundings made me forget the pain as soon as the wound healed. Once I left the rehabilitation center, I forgot everything. Instead of going straight home, the moment I heard old friends calling, my heart itched. I would sneak back to those filthy dens and continue hanging around with my old crowd of worthless friends.

I had no money left, and drugs were expensive, so I secretly sold the appliances from home. When my sister discovered it, I cruelly beat her until the corner of her mouth bled. Later, when there was nothing left in the house, I went out and stole the medical money of an elderly woman in her eighties. She died because she had no money for treatment. I was arrested again and thrown into a detention center.

Looking back now, I was a bastard—utterly inhuman, disowning even my own family. I was ruthless even toward my own sister, and I did not spare an old woman in her eighties.

Look, this is the power of drugs. They changed my entire life, destroyed my bright future, and turned me from a promising young man into an inhuman demon with a warped sense of right and wrong.

Students, drugs harm others and harm yourselves. One day of drug use can mean a lifetime of rehabilitation. Once you get hooked, you may spend the rest of your life shuttling among detention centers, rehabilitation centers, and holding cells.

I will never forget this lesson for the rest of my life.

I had reached the end of the road, every day feeling like a year. But the officers at the detention center did not give up on me. They still treated me like a human being, counseled me, and tried to save me. They even invited my sister to see me and take me home when I was released. Here, I promise all the officers at the rehabilitation center and all the teachers and students visiting today that from this moment on, I will never use drugs again after I leave.

Just as Hu Pan's personal account was drawing to a close, a woman in her twenties stepped onto the stage under an officer's guidance. She held out a slender, eager hand, took Hu Pan's hand, and said, "Brother, come home!"

A burst of enthusiastic applause rang throughout the rehabilitation center.

Tong Haojing, standing among the students, watched intently and was deeply moved. When someone who had gone astray reached the end of the road, the pull of sibling affection could sometimes be more effective than any legal punishment. Tong Haojing was moved as well, and his clapping was especially loud.

He asked an officer standing beside him, "Officer, can Hu Pan really quit drugs?"

The officer glanced at Tong Haojing. "Why couldn't he? Man can conquer nature. Even the greatest task can be accomplished—the key is having extraordinary willpower!"

The officer's answer was artful, and Tong Haojing's mind filled with thoughts. Early on the third day after returning to school, Tong Haojing witnessed the scene of a woman jumping from a building beneath the Ficus virens tree.

The woman had inexplicably jumped to her death beneath a Ficus virens tree not far from the entrance of Tangdu Middle School. To everyone's surprise, she was Hu Lian.

News of the woman's suicide exploded instantly. A dense, gloomy atmosphere of fear spread through Tangdu Middle School and beyond. Everyone thought Hu Lian was a good girl who sold braised goose. Why would she jump from a building?

A day later, Tong Haojing heard that West City Police Station had caught Hu Pan, who had just left the rehabilitation center, using drugs again at a friend's home. He confessed the reason Hu Lian had jumped: after he left the center, he had used drugs again. His sister Hu Lian was utterly devastated and tried drugs herself in hopes of making Hu Pan change his mind. But Hu Lian overdosed, hallucinated that her brother was chasing her to kill her, and in desperation jumped from her own building to her death. Hu Pan, however, ignored his sister's death and secretly returned to a drug den, where he was caught.

After hearing this shocking and tragic truth, Tong Haojing could not calm down for a long time. Drug users were pitiful, hateful, and tragic, yet when they repented, most of them were merely acting, deceiving themselves and others. It showed just how terrifying the harm of drugs was. Thinking of Hu Lian dying so confusedly and unjustly, he wanted to speak up for her and send Hu Pan to the eighteenth level of hell to ease the hatred in his heart.

The evil of drugs became a knot Tong Haojing could not untie. The shadow of Hu Lian's death by jumping haunted his vision. He resolved to apply to a police academy after graduation and become a police officer who eradicated drugs and upheld justice.

Tong Haojing sat in a third-floor classroom at Tangdu Middle School, studying diligently and burning the midnight oil. After graduating from high school, however, he failed to get into the police academy of his dreams and returned to his hometown in a daze.